July 24, 2026

Sociology: Work, Organizations, and Inequalities

Fernanda Forte de Carvalho e Ana Cristina Santos

Recent transformations in the world of work, associated with productive and rights flexibilization, occupational fragmentation and the reorganization of global value chains, have significantly altered the material and symbolic foundations of workers' collective action. The decline in union density, the weakening of traditional mechanisms of collective bargaining, the expansion of informal and precarious work, and liberalizing reforms have affected the funding, organization and repertoires of trade union representation, producing a scenario often characterized as a crisis of trade unionism, although it assumes different forms across national contexts. In Brazil, these processes intensified following the approval of the 2017 labour reform, reshaping the conditions for action and legitimacy of trade union organizations. Within this context, the debate on trade union revitalization is addressed in this research through the analysis of the case of the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) and its relationship with the LGBTQIA+ community. The choice of CUT is justified by its historical trajectory as the largest trade union confederation in the country, by its origins in the "new unionism", and by its tradition of articulating labour demands with struggles for democratization and dialogue with social movements. Since the 1990s, CUT has responded to transformations in the world of work through the formulation of "citizen unionism", a perspective that broadens the scope of trade union action beyond the strictly labour sphere. Within this process, the confederation has approached the LGBTQIA+ movement, whose trajectory in Brazil involves processes of political organization, the construction of public policies, the judicialization of rights, and resistance to cycles of conservative backlash. The consolidation of the notion of sexual citizenship as a political perspective has brought claims for recognition, material equality and protection against discrimination to the centre of public debate, including within the world of work. The incorporation of this agenda by trade unionism becomes particularly relevant in light of the need to expand and renew CUT's social bases, engage new generations of workers, and confront inequalities articulated through class, gender and sexuality. The central objective of this thesis is to understand how CUT incorporated LGBTQIA+ issues into its actions and alliances between 2000 and 2023, examining whether these initiatives constitute part of a strategy of trade union revitalization. The research adopts a qualitative approach and is guided by an analytical model organized around four dimensions of trade union revitalization: institutional, membership, societal, and network integration, drawing on the literature on trade union revitalization, particularly the works of Costa et al. (2020) and Krein and Dias (2015). The study combines documentary analysis of CUT congress resolutions, programmatic texts and training materials, interviews with union leaders involved in LGBTQIA+ issues, and content analysis of CUT-Brazil's digital profiles on Facebook and Instagram. The interpretation of the data indicates that the incorporation of LGBTQIA+ issues was marked by internal controversies, negotiations of meaning and organizational asymmetries, leading actions and alliances to be consolidated more as tactical expedients than as strategic guidelines for trade union revitalization. The controversy surrounding this agenda emerges as a structuring element of the analysed period, revealing tensions between discursive innovation and organizational practices, as well as between normative recognition and the capacity to translate it into belonging, mobilization and union power. The thesis concludes that CUT's investment in this agenda is relevant both for confronting discrimination and for the possibility of rebuilding public legitimacy, renewing social bases and reaffirming solidarity in a context marked by inequalities and the precarization of work.

Key-words: Brazil; Central Única dos Trabalhadores; LGBTQIA+ Movement; Sexual Citizenship; Trade Union Revitalization